Dog breeders couple questions

[ninny]

I have a goal of breeding dogs for our service dog training group. Right now we have to buy puppies or try and get puppies dontated. I am thinking it will be labs and standard poodles. Now it wont be for a couple years that i can do this as i rent now and need my own place again. I am going to go to grooming school and for a vet tech cert. . All my breeders will be therpy dogs and OB titled. I also will be doing all health testing on them. They will be from health tested lines as well. All puppies will be tranined and placed as service or therpy dogs not as pets. Anything else i should think of to do before i ever get the frist dog?

 

[JustAChickenLittle&More]

I would also include Golden Retrievers.

 

[RiverOtter]

What kind of service are the dogs to be trained for? I would see about contacting large organizations for mentorship. No need to reinvent the wheel.

 

[Brindlebtch]

Be prepared for some washouts. All dogs are not cut out for service. I would speak to somebody who already trains service dogs. I don't think standard poodles are usually used.

 

[welsummerchicks]

I think you need to think about the dogs that fail to get trained, also.

I think breeding dogs more than a litter a year really requires the facilities of a kennel - very secure dog runs, whelping rooms, and a lot of very securely fenced land, divided up so certain dogs can be separated, where the dogs can run. I wouldn't try to do it without excellent physical layout, and a really good investment, especially in fencing. As well as a very good relationship with a vet.

Taking the reproductive training would help, being a vet tech would help too. Apprenticing to a really top notch breeder might help. Look into any and all certification you can get to legitimize your program.

 

[ninny]

I think this will cover all the replys.


The group is called Pups Assiting With the Disabled. (PAWD). Our website is www.pawd.info We have more clients then we have dogs ready for. One of the reasons we are starting to think about breeding our dogs. We are different from the larger groups in that we custom train the dog for the client. Most groups train for one thing only. We can do just about anything. This helps us keep from having washouts. We can match the dog to the right client. It may just be a home dog. Meaning it would live at a nursing home as a resdient pet.

The labs are for sure. The poodles are a thought at the monment. We use puppy raisers but that could change. My husband and I are going to be opening a dog kennel. It will provide training, grooming, boarding for the public. This is where the groups dogs will be.

 

[patandchickens]

The main reason I could see for breeding your own dogs rather than using carefully-selected rescues is that you can (if you invest the time/energy/money) be more sure of the health/soundness outlook for homebreds than from shelter randombreds.

However this is only an advantage if you actually DO it, which can get pretty expensive (doing buncha xrays and eye exams and such, plus buying pricier stock to start with, from lines pretty sure to be free from problems for *a number of* generations). Also it is obviously a lot more expensive to breed than to rescue.

So I guess my question is, have you actually run the numbers in a realistic fashion on this, and made sure it is something that makes financial sense or is even feasible?

Pat

 

[ninny]

Quote:
I havent run any numbers yet. Im still moslty in the idea stage. The other really big reason for breeding the dogs is age. Its very very hard to find rescue dogs that are of the right age, health and temperment combo. It takes around 2 years to train for most clients so we try to stay with puppies or very young dogs. Most resuce dogs are between 2-6 years old. Then they have issues and bad habits to break plus i still have to do the health testing on them. I cant train a dog to brace for someone and have it have hip probelms. So im looking at three years of training. We dont take dogs over 3 for that reason. Most working dogs retire around 9 so it does no good to train a older dog. If we can get rescue dogs we grab them up. But ones that will work for us are very few and far between. We just can not provided for the number of clients we have with rescue dogs only. Wish we could though.

 

[RiverOtter]

I think what I would do if I was you would still be to contact one of the large organizations that has had a breeding program in place for years and see what they could teach you.
Both the simple economics of it but also the selections of initial and future breeding stock, how best to set up your future facilities and all that good stuff.

 

[ninny]

Quote:
I will.